Spain, along with fellow Catholic partners Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Poland, wants Europe to formalize its Christian heritage in a future EU constitution.
Avowedly secular France doesn't agree.
French President Jacques Chirac backs legal moves to ban the veil in schools.
But in Spain, the ethical message in a predominantly Catholic society is being reinforced after the Spanish authorities issued an official paper last week pinning their colors firmly to the mast in placing religious instruction in schools on a par with other subjects such as mathematics.
The foreword to the program, which will become law next year, does not mince its words in stressing the need for religious instruction in school -- preferably of a Catholic nature.
Students of other faiths -- or atheists -- will also receive up to three hours a week of
religious instruction, but only in the context of the "history of religions" taught by history and philosophy professors.
Previously, such students would study ethics or other activities whose content was largely left to a school's discretion.
Catholic students, the government estimates, have a duty to "know the love of Jesus Christ" and trumpet the "values of marriage" as part of a program laid down for state schools to follow closely alongside the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.
"An integrated, and thus quality, education cannot exist unless all of a human being's inherent capacities, including the spiritual, are developed," says the text.
More specifically, "a pupil is going to discover [their spiritual capacity] in the language of the Bible, in Christian models of identification and notably in the presence of Jesus Christ," says the text, which also implicitly recommends Catholicism as the path to follow.
Blissfully untouched by the rumpus which has surfaced in France over the desire of some Muslim students to wear the veil as a cultural and religious symbol, which could be banned under a new French law, Spain is ramping up the Catholic element of its state education system.
For example, following a law passed last June by the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar marks in catechism classes will count towards a student's overall results, determining if he or she can move on to the next year cycle and ultimately go to university.
Marks obtained in the history of religion for non-Catholics will count in the same manner.
The legislation provides for all children receiving, from the age of 12, instruction such weighty matters as the "finality of sexuality," as well as "the sacrament of marriage" and "divorce and the problems associated with it."
Youngsters will also be encouraged to learn "how to apply the fundamentals of Christian morality" to their sexual existence in the document drawn up by a committee of priests.
Leftist opposition groups are opposed to the importance assigned to the catechism and the compulsory study of religion which they see as "unconstitutional" given that the 1978 Spanish constitution guarantees the right to confidentiality regarding one's religious views.
The constitution was drawn up in 1978, three years after the death of military dictator General Francisco Franco during whose 36-year rule Catholicism was the official state religion.
Now, while the majority of Spaniards profess the faith, the constitution stipulates that no faith has the character of state religion.
A parents' association went to court over the issue in October in the belief that the requirement to receive religious instruction "violates laws of equality and lay principles regarding aspects of neutrality and the separation of church and state."
Unions and pro-communist groups have thrown their support behind the parents.
Socialist Party education spokesman Amparo Valcarce has also spoken out.
"It is a very serious matter that completely legal positions should be criminalized in all state schools, financed as they are by all Spaniards," says Valcarce, who notes in particular the negative slant on divorce.
Colleagues speak of a "major backward step," pointing to the increased moves towards multiculturalism in Spain where a recent rise in immigration is bringing with it a wider gamut of religious practice.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist